So my buddy Raion-Fox is sending me the last parts I need to finish my second sad O2, and then he'll be done And I'll have 2 {mostly} identical O2s. I've gotten alot of satisfaction rebuilding them to working condition. So I pose this...

What should my next project machine be?

I'd like to do an Octane, but that's rather expensive to do. I'm tight on funds, so maybe an Indy. I'd love love love an Indy.

I just saw an Octane on ebay, starting bid $50 with $100 shipping. Looked like a pretty good machine. I thought about trying to get it for min bid just get get the drive sleds and extra parts (dual CPU)!

The Octane/O2K/Onyx2 drive sleds seem extremely desirable! I didn't really think they were all that rare, as the first lot of SGIs I bought came with plenty, but when I bought my Origin, the seller assured me that it had the drive sled. When I sold an Octane2 recently, the buyer made sure to check for a sled (which it had). People are talking about 3D printing O2 sleds, and even buying an entire Octane just for the sleds!

Also, I just checked on SGIDepot. 50UKP! That's like $80 Canadian! I didn't know these things were so hard to find. I will see about making some on a 3D printer. They would never be as valuable as the originals, but maybe for like $30 CAD (18UKP) it would be an attractive product for hobbyists on a budget, and useful as real sleds become harder to find.

We can thank the government for that. When they decommissioned their SGIs, the drives, sled and all, got destroyed to protect any classified information. That's why there are more machines than sleds. The same problem exists for Sun workstations too.

SGI/HPE probably has whole boxes full of them shoved away somewhere. When SGI bought Linux Networx we had a whole warehouse full of random crap for older clusters that lay forgotten. So it wouldn't surprise me.

Ah, I wondered if data destruction policies had something to do with it. 3D printing them seems like the best option, unless HPE wants to open up the vaults with the IRIX source, InfiniteReality 5, and Banana2000 prototype ...

IDK. One thing I will say about HP is how hobbyist friendly they are. I'd love to see them give out hobbyist licenses of Irix like the do with OpenVMS and HP-UX. I think it's a matter of doing what the DEC boys have done and let them know there is a thriving hobbyist community. But I see HP throwing us a bone.